1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to communication devices, and more particularly to management of communications with one or more contacts using a communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, most people utilize multiple communication devices. A person, for example, may have a home telephone number, office telephone number, cellular telephone, two-way messaging device, and one or more email (electronic mail) addresses. To contact this person, one must sequentially try each of the numbers taking into account the most probable location that the person is at that moment. This creates an extremely fragmented communication experience. For example, the caller tries the person's office telephone and gets voicemail. Then the caller tries the mobile phone and again gets voicemail. Then the caller sends a short message via instant messaging or email. Dialing all these various numbers sequentially can be distracting and tedious to the caller.
Cellular telephones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and other portable electronic devices having communication capability have become fixtures of everyday life over the last several years. As they evolve, prices continue to fall while the devices' capabilities have expanded. Currently, such devices can be used in many places to initiate telephone calls, make wireless connection to the Internet, play games, as well as carry out electronic mail (email) and other messaging functions. It can readily be anticipated that as time goes by, the capabilities of such devices will continue to expand as prices continue to fall, making use of such devices a permanent part of people's daily lives.
One popular feature of today's communication devices is the use of a contact directory or address book. The contact directory feature enables a device user to create, organize, and manage a list of friends, family members, and co-workers on their computer, personal digital assistant, or wireless device. Users can create and store multiple communication links for one or more different contacts to facilitate electronic communication. For example, a device user can store the communication link for his/her co-worker's cellular telephone, office telephone, home telephone, wireless messaging device, and electronic mail address. To communicate with the co-worker, the device user can choose one of the stored communication links and initiate a communication to the co-worker.
One drawback of today's devices is the manual nature of choosing with which communication device to initiate a communication. For example, it can be tedious to locate a contact by randomly calling the contact's office telephone, then his mobile phone, and then send a message to his messaging device as described previously. In a mobile environment, especially while driving, it can be time consuming, and cumbersome, to continue to access the contact directory each time a new call has to be started because the intended person is not answering the previously called numbers.